A Fool and His Pile

You are here

Pages

We've made it to April already. It is with a sad heart that I announce this will be the last Pile of Shame thread. Some changes are coming and I'm not going to be able to keep up. It's been fun and I'll miss it.*

If you're interested, m0nk3yboy, has the 12 month pile plan thread over here.

A quick reminder, in order to be considered "Pile of Shame" the game needs to be at least three months old. Otherwise, it's just a new game you haven't gotten to playing yet.

Also, if you are curious about some of the previous threads, Pick's of the Pile, etc... Please go here and check out the Google doc I setup.

Let's get on to the games!

This month's Pick of the Pile is

[size=30]Persona 3[/size]

"A group of high schoolers have a dangerous extracurricular activity: exploring the mysterious tower Tartarus and fighting the sinister Shadows during the Dark Hour, a frozen span of time unknown to normal humans." (Atlus.com)

ClockworkHouse: He means the comic The Dark Knight Returns, where Batman and Superman get in a fistfight over Gotham. Not The Dark Knight Rises, where Batman and a loudly farting orchestra get in a fistfight over your attention.

ClockworkHouse: He means the comic The Dark Knight Returns, where Batman and Superman get in a fistfight over Gotham. Not The Dark Knight Rises, where Batman and a loudly farting orchestra get in a fistfight over your attention.

Mass Effect 2 - I just barely missed finishing it in March, and I expect I'll have it finished in the next couple of weekends! Sadly, I don't have any of the DLC, so I'll have to dig the game out of my pile again later in the year, but the important part is that finishing this level-30 playthrough means I can move on to other games.

SpaceChem is in the queue for April; I'm 2/3 of the way through but got bogged down with the trickier levels. Still, I want to make it all the way through at least once, even if my solutions are messy and inefficient.

Carrying forward Alan Wake w/DLC from March. I actually just finished the main game tonight, so only the DLC episodes are left. After that will probably be a TVTropes binge starting on the Alan Wake page.

I think I'll also pledge Costume Quest (PC/multi) even though the PC port could have been better (specifically, clarity of controls).

Also, I'll take another stab at The Mark of Kri (PS2). I've finished 2 of 6 levels and it's been going quickly on the rare occasions I did play it.

Depending on how all of that goes, I might throw Portal 2 on there later as well.

------------------------------------------------

Just wanted to add a little more about Amnesia:

Everyone has heard about the awesome sound design, and it is, indeed, awesome, but the sense of tension this game builds up is amazing. Part of it is probably my own fault since I had 15 jars of oil and 53 tinderboxes in my inventory at the end, but frequently seeing - or think you're seeing - something moving just on the edge of the screen is really unnerving. Same goes for enemies that pass by only to disappear. I have a fear of being in any body of water in which I can't see the bottom because my mind thinks something unpleasant can sneak up on me in it, so a section about 1/3 through the game was extremely nerve wracking to me.
Not enough mention seems to be given to the controls, either. The depth of manipulation and having to emulate movements via the mouse is something I haven't seen outside of touch-screen interfaces.
I can't remember ever having played a game in which I'm frantically running away from a seen or unseen threat at breakneck pace, taking the moment to slam doors shut behind me in the hope that it buys me an extra second or two - and actually experiencing my character's fear in myself as well!

Risen 2 is out at the end of the month so it's past time I finished the first one, so put me down for Risen in which I am making reasonable progress. Hopefully I'll also get around to the Missing Link DLC for Deus Ex: Human Rev shortly as well, I'm rapidly approaching that part of the game on my current playthrough (I'm assuming it slots into the main game when you hit that point?).

Also, I'll take another stab at The Mark of Kri (PS2). I've finished 2 of 6 levels and it's been going quickly on the rare occasions I did play it.

Yeesh - boy am I coming to regret those words. Levels 1 and 2 were reasonably brief. Level three was a marathon that lasted nearly 3 hours! The difficulty was also significantly higher. I'm hoping for some relief, but signs (number of videos in a youtube longplay) point to "no".

Also, I'll take another stab at The Mark of Kri (PS2). I've finished 2 of 6 levels and it's been going quickly on the rare occasions I did play it.

Yeesh - boy am I coming to regret those words. Levels 1 and 2 were reasonably brief. Level three was a marathon that lasted nearly 3 hours! The difficulty was also significantly higher. I'm hoping for some relief, but signs (number of videos in a youtube longplay) point to "no".

Are you still enjoying it though? I tried playing Mark of Kri a couple years ago after a buddy raved about it, and while it was a cool concept for a combat system, and the setting was super neat, I just could not get into it. The difficulty you mention didn't help, either. I ended up dumping it. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts if you are digging and just hit a stumbling block, but if you're not, dump it. If anyone could use a backlog purge, it's you.

Are you still enjoying it though? I tried playing Mark of Kri a couple years ago after a buddy raved about it, and while it was a cool concept for a combat system, and the setting was super neat, I just could not get into it. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts if you are digging and just hit a stumbling block, but if you're not, dump it. If anyone could use a backlog purge, it's you.

It's alright. I mostly enjoy it when I get to playing it, but I don't often feel 'drawn' to firing it up. The most onerous thing to me so far are coming to a full stop when I bump into something, and having to go through "put away weapon, pull out weapon" animations at dumb times. There are some rather frustrating moments, too, such as having to fight in a forest and getting my sword stuck in trees all the time.